While away on holiday (gloat!) I got the opportunity for uninterrupted listening to podcasts 🙂 One of these was a July episode of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, which included a discussion of the (in)famous Kennewick Man remains. These 9,000-years-old bones have been the focus of considerable controversy in the US, where they were […]
Continue readingToday in the Herald I learned that eye colour can reflect personality. Apparently [r]esearchers from the University of Queensland and the University of NSW analysed the eye colour of 336 Australians – most with a northern European background. They answered a series of questionnaires measuring aspects of their personality like agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. The […]
Continue readingI took a little time over lunch to catch up with the work of various science communicators, most notably that of Brian Switek, whose blog Laelaps is carried by the Wired website & who also writes Dinosaur Tracking on Smithsonian.com. I’m now regretting my long absence, for not only is Brian an excellent communicator of […]
Continue readingWe’ve just come back from a few glorious days in New Plymouth (arriving home before the change in weather). Had a great time tramping, walking the coastal walkway, eating yummy food – all those nice things you do, holidaying with friends. And as some of the party were driving from Paritutu to meet the rest […]
Continue readingSince I (re)posted the first part of this story last week, I figure I’d better complete the tale today 🙂 Hopefully things will settle down a bit at work now the semester’s under way, & I can get back into some ‘proper’ writing! Possession of an Achilles tendon is only one of the things that […]
Continue readingI’ve been blogging since August 2007. Which seems quite a long time, looking back on it 🙂 Anyway, because I’m kind of rushed at the moment – & on the theory that new(ish) readers might not have delved all that far into the back issues, I thought I’d repost a couple of pieces from way […]
Continue readingJust a heads-up for teachers & students: next month Chris Stringer will be giving public lectures on human evolution in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch & Dunedin. (No Hamilton talk! I am sad 🙁 I’ve got an all-day meeting that means I’d never get up to the Auckland event in time.) From the latest Royal Society "Alert": […]
Continue readingThis comes at an opportune time for those of you teaching the Human Evolution content – and for those looking around for some follow-up reading 🙂 The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has a whole lot of free biology education resources available on line, and this upcoming webcast looks to be wonderful stuff: Bones, Stones, & Genes: the […]
Continue readingI’ve just started browsing through a book with the promising title, Quirks of human anatomy: an evo-devo look at the human body. (Held, 2009). (The Science librarian does a great job of sifting through new titles & running them past the various departments in our Faculty to see what people would like to see added to […]
Continue readingOnce upon a time, a long time ago when I was a high school student, I remember being taught about human evolution as a fairly linear, straightforward narrative. OK, there were those ‘robust’ australopiths (aka Paranthropus) on a dead-end side branch, but otherwise species followed species – beginning around 14 million years ago with Ramapithecus (or Sivapithecus) – until you […]
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